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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | Jason Damas <jason.damas@gmail.com> |
| Subject | Re: Boston |
| Date | Sat, 07 Jan 2006 09:12:29 -0500 |
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On the other hand, she always loved going to Smash City on Newbury
Street (formerly Mystery Train II), because it was owned and almost
always staffed by her former officemate, Peter Prescott of
Burma/Volcano Suns/Kustomized fame. Sadly, however, Peter closed the
shop about a year and a half ago, around the time that Burma was
starting back up. Good for him, I guess, but it was a great little
store. I miss it. >>
Sadly it seems Boston has had a lot of great little indie stores come and go over the years--in addition to this one, there was a really cool little one in Jamaica Plain that I used to enjoy (and the name of which I cannot place) and of course the much-missed Disc Diggers in Davis Square. There's a store I've made some good finds in (I found a copy of Sparks' "Introducing Sparks"--on vinyl obviously, since it was never issued on CD)--there in December 2003) but I'm not sure if it's there or not anymore, and I don't remember the name. It's in a weird place, on Mass Ave about halfway between Harvard and Central Squares, in a basement.
Similarly, while they're not the best stores in the world, Boston has a chain of mostly-used shops called CD Spins with stores in (assuming all are still open) Davis/Somerville, Harvard Sq, Jamaica Plain, Back Bay/Newbury Street, and Downtown Crossing. I've made many good finds over the years, and found that the staff is often surprisingly knowledgeable. Definitely a bit more in a chainy mold (think CD Warehouse, who doesn't have stores here) but due to their locations being exclusively in urban neighborhoods, they get good stuff. Newbury Comics, for all its virtues (and you SHOULD stop there) has always had a terrible used selection and even worse prices (it was a joke, when I worked there, that sometimes the price of a certain album USED would be MORE than the same album new if the latter had gone on sale), in part because they shuffle merchandise extensively between locations, meaning that the used bin at, say, newbury street often doesn't contain many more gems than the bin at Leominster.
Also, this isn't a Boston retailer exactly, but there's a chain that exists exclusively in NH-Maine called Bull Moose Music that's very similar to Newbury, but definitely still trends more towards the indie. How they survive is beyond me, but by all accounts they actually do quite well. About two years ago they opened a 10,000 flagship warehouse/store hybrid on Maine Mall Road in South Portland, which is (I believe) the single largest indie record store in New England.
--J
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